The injured party. T he High Court blocked, on a tech- nicality, the extradition of 26 Liverpool football supporters to Belgium, where they are accused in connection with the...

WE REGRET to inform our readers that as from this month, they are no lon g er entitled, regardless of their means, to maternity grant of £25, or to death g rant of £30. Beverid...

CITY analysts believe that local councils have run up £5 billion in debts to financial institutions by sellin g - and leasin g back many of their assets. The institutions have...

THE DEFENCE OF EUROPE It must be said that this crisis is one for Which the United States and its Western allies were ill-prepared. When President Rea g an first proposed the...

And remember, voting Alliance may let in the Alliance MATTHEW PARRIS G ood morning, Mrs Wildgoose; I'm canvassing on behalf of . . . . — what was that? The Liberal Party, Mrs...

JOHN GRIGG T he date of Easter has been exercising theologians since the earliest times and is still a live issue as we near the end of the second Christmas millennium....

Three game wardens, seven hunters and a cow AUBERON WAUGH S t Thomas Aquinas, in his answer to that most absorbing of all questions in moral theology — why did God create...

Gorbachev's visit to Czechoslovakia has been represented as developing his policy of openness. Richard Bassett reports on the far grimmer reality Prague ONE of Mr Gorbachev's...

CANON MacColl, in the interesting lecture on Socrates delivered at Leeds, of which the Yorkshire Post completed its report some ten days ago, expresses a strong desire for a...

Richard West reports on the rumours which have emerged after a politician's suicide Cape Town THE mysterious suicide of a cabinet minis- ter has given a gossipy interest to...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard finds that American university campuses are not paved with gold Washington THE brain drain to America is highly filtered. Only the best get through, and...

Terence Kealey argues that Britain is right to stop the EEC spending more on scientific research BRITAIN'S foreign policy seems, for the present, to have been delegated to...

Dhiren Bhagat finds the new report on a massacre of Sikhs inferior to the 1919 version New Delhi IT IS useful when reading the official report on the massacre of Sikhs...

It is an exaggeration to say Belfast A COLD, wet afternoon on the Falls Road, and 5,000 Catholics have turned out to witness the twice postponed funeral of Lawrence Marley, the...

Roy Kerridge on the connection between black sections and the Monday Club ALTHOUGH I know nothing at all about politics, I was once invited by Harvey Proctor, MP, to address a...

Alexander Norman surveys the armed forces' preparations for dealing with Aids FRENCH letters, like defence cuts, are a fact of military life. Those who fear for our soldiery...

The press: as his Easter duty Paul Johnson reviews the religious press THERE was a time, perhaps 25 years ago, when one could take refuge in the religious press from the...

What Holey Buckett and Ned Drongo are doing in church this weekend CHRISTOPHER FILDES T his is the season when our thoughts turn towards the Church, and some of us go so far...

Sir: I was interested to read the article by Francis Beckett — 'Labour cuts its own Throat' (7 March) and to note that Mr Beckett failed to mention that in the first week of the...

Sir: I challenge Auberon Waugh's account in your columns last week of the action brought by my wife against the Literary Review, which he edits, as a deception of your readers,...

Sir: In his perceptive review of John Campbell's Nye Bevan (Books, 4 April), Alan Watkins says 'there is no evidence that Lord Beaverbrook "financed" Tribune as Mr Campbell...

Sir: I have just read the excellent tribute to David Watt in the Spectator (4 April). I should, however, like to point out that it was my husband, lain Hamilton, who first...

Sir: The National Art-Collections Fund shares Mr Stamp's concern for the fate of our collections of architectural drawings. Such drawings are now in demand as decorative items,...

Sir: In his article on the problem of housing (Another voice, 21 March), Auberon Waugh attributes the general discontent amongst young married couples to the high cost of...

Sir: I was intrigued to read your apology for a lack of communication with the outside world during the week leading UP to your 21 March edition. We are also on the 01-404/5...

Sir: May I suggest the following election cry for the Member for Billericay: Ilewx.rop rer)oryucu xcreQtav Anyav era (With apologies to the shade of Aeschylus: Ag. 1343). Colin...

Sir: Taki should stick to British Airways. He may not be guaranteed no Monsieur Petit (High life, 28 March) but at least there will be no Joan Collins. Jonnie Hok Middle Old...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Kingsley Amis would like to believe in God but cannot. He explains why he has a right to call the Church of England to order MY grandparents were Baptists of the Denmark Hill...

The last Labour PM Jo Grimond TIME AND CHANCE by James Callaghan Collins, f15.95 W hy did Sunny Jim allow his pub- lishers to put such a preposterous dust- jacket on his...

Gabriel Josipovici ENIGMA: THE LIFE OF KNUT HAMSUN by Robert Ferguson Hutchinson, f19.95 K nut Hamsun is indeed one of the enigmas of modern literature. His early novels...

He walked out of the summer's eye Into a place where no one came, Where each step's anonymity Returned its echo in his name, Promising nothing less than all Or nothing that he...

Anita Brookner THE STORIES OF MURIEL SPARK The Bodley Head, £12.95 T hings mostly turn out for the worst in Muriel Spark's short stories, as they do in her novels, but with...

Anthony Holden OLIVIER: IN CELEBRATION edited by Garry O'Connor Hodder & Stoughton, £12.95 S ome years ago, I wrote a biography of the Prince of Wales. Ever since, off and...

Peter Levi SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: SELECTED LETTERS edited by H. J. Jackson OUP, f19.50 C oleridge is as many-sided as Byron, and in conversation one might have liked him...

• yearnings Marie-Alice de Beaumarchais PAST TENSE: (LE PASSE DEFINI): THE DIARIES OF JEAN COCTEAU VOL I, 1951-1952 translated by Richard Howard Hamish Hamilton, £15 T "...

John Jolliffe FLORENCE EXPLORED by Rupert Scott Bodley Head, f12.50 A GUIDE TO TUSCANY by James Bentley Viking, f10.95 R upert Scott has modelled his very enjoyable and...

Frances Spalding REBECCA WEST: A LIFE by Victoria Glendinning Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f14.95 J ust how important is something that ends when you are thirty?' This remark ,...

Country houses Holding the bridge for fifty years John Martin Robinson The National Trust's Country House Scheme R ecently on a visit to Lincolnshire, I was struck by the...

Sculpture's springtime Alistair Hicks T he battle lines are firmly drawn over `The Young British Sculptors'. To many within these small shores they are an abomination. Yet...

Wedding prayers Peter Phillips S ince I am to be married this week my mind has been turned to ceremonial music. The problem with it is that many people who are not in the...

Personal Services (Plaza Lower Regent Street, various Cannons) Working Girls (Metro, Rupert Street) Furtive sniggers Hilary Mantel T he New Monogamy and its attendant moral...

The resistible rise of Arturo Ui (Queen's Theatre) The Tourist Guide (Almeida) The annals of bumming Christopher Edwards satire on the rise to power of Adolf Hitler up to the...

Dr Ruth permitting Wendy Cope I have never liked the idea of breakfast television any more than I like the thought of eating chocolate or drinking whisky at seven o'clock in...

Surprisingly soft Stone Taki liver Stone won the Academy Award in 1978 for his screenplay for Midnight Express, and this year's Oscar for having written and directed the...

Mortal jewels Alice Thomas Ellis I haven't got much jewellery. I had even less until recently. Two years ago in the country I lost a signet ring. We shook the bedclothes,...

week.

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Now we are sick Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1467 you were asked for a poem beginning like one of A. A. Milne's verses for children but continuing in an un-Milnish manner....

Kok ahoop Raymond Keene Brussels h athat impresses most about the SWIFT operation is the imperial style of millionaire Bessel Kok, the company's chief executive and promoter...

Couscous houses THE eating habits of nations are shaped by their history and their colonial past. We have curry, France has couscous. Probably Berber in origin (the North...

piece of prose (maximum 150 words) incorporat - ing the following words or phrases in any order: bar, baroquely, Barclaycard, b arbed-wire, bare-faced, barnacle, bardic, barmy,...

© a t Q n e o Comm In harrall MIME= (more PriridrCLICIMCICI Minor ;mom r r garininni con on B I E O A N G A A B r iicronnionpr 1111 de1111312112111 0 12 131111111n...

NOT another very good (great) vintage in Bordeaux? `Amtcha geddin sicktadeath of it all?' as Glenda Slag would say. Well, that may be an important question, but first let us try...

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO ENJOY THE SPECTATOR AT LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required...